Educating For Critical Democratic Literacy Integrating Social Studies and Literacy in The Elementary Classroom 1st Edition Kathryn M. Obenchain

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EDUCATING FOR CRITICAL
DEMOCRATIC LITERACY
Educating for Critical Democratic Literacy educates pre and in-service elementary
school teachers in teaching four key civics concepts through social studies and
literacy integration. Written together by both literacy and social studies experts,
it is based on a conceptual revision of the notions of civic education and critical
literacy called “Critical Democratic Literacy” (CDL). The authors’ dual expertise
allows them to effectively detail the applications of their knowledge for teachers,
from lesson conception to implementation to assessment.
Part I explains the theory and basic principles of CDL and provides back-
ground information on the role of democracy in education. Part II consists of
four sample lessons designed using the National Council for the Social Studies
(NCSS) C3 Framework and the Common Core State Standards for English/
Language Arts (CCSS ELA) standards. Part III includes a primer explaining the
four civic concepts that frame the book. Fully aligned to both the CCSS ELA and
NCSS C3 Framework, this timely resource provides future and current teachers
with specific lessons and tools, as well as the skills to develop their own rigorous,
integrated units of study.
Kathryn M. Obenchain is an associate professor in the Department of

Curriculum & Instruction at Purdue University.
Julie L. Pennington is an associate professor of Literacy Studies at the University

of Nevada, Reno.
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EDUCATING FOR
CRITICAL DEMOCRATIC
LITERACY
Integrating Social Studies and
Literacy in the Elementary
Classroom
Kathryn M. Obenchain and Julie L. Pennington

First published 2015
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2015 Taylor & Francis
The right of Kathryn M. Obenchain and Julie L. Pennington to be
identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance
with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Obenchain, Kathryn M., author.
Educating for critical democratic literacy: integrating social studies and
literacy in the elementary classroom / By Kathryn M. Obenchain and
Julie L. Pennington. — 1st published 2015.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Critical pedagogy—United States. 2. Civics—Study and teaching
(Elementary)—United States. I. Pennington, Julie L., author. II. Title.
LC196.5.U6O25 2015
370.11’5—dc23
2014041095
ISBN: 978-1-138-81374-8 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-81375-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-74790-3 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by diacriTech
We dedicate this book to all of the teachers dedicated to helping their students
become virtuous, resilient, and engaged members of the democratic community.
We applaud their continued commitment to their students and to their own
learning, while working under the unrelenting pressures of accountability and
high-stakes testing.
K. M. O. and J. L. P.
I dedicate this book to the memory of my parents who taught me to love

and respect the discipline of history. To my father, a World War II veteran, who
inspired my love of country; and to my mother, an independent and bril-
liant woman born a generation too early, who inspired me to push against the
boundaries and expectations set by others. Together they also taught me the
importance of serving the greater good. I thank them both.
K. M. O.
I dedicate this book to my father, who taught me to not only seek to understand
history, but to continually question it; and to my mother, who taught me the
resiliency and tenacity to do both.
J. L. P.
CONTENTS
Illustrations ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgements xvii
PART I
Understanding Critical Democratic Literacy 1
1 Educating for Critical Democratic Literacy 3
2 Critical Democratic Literacy: Fostering Informed

Resilient Engagement in a Democratic Society 16
PART II
Teaching Critical Democratic Literacy 31
3 What Can I Do to Be a Good Citizen? A Kindergarten

Unit on Civic Virtue 33
4 When and How Should I Get Involved in Civic Life?

A Third-Grade Unit on Civic Engagement 56
5 How Should I Talk About Important Civic Issues?

A Fourth-Grade Unit on Civil Discourse 81
viii Contents
6 What Can I Do When a Law Is Unjust? A Fifth-Grade

Unit on Civil Disobedience 105
PART III
Implementing Critical Democratic Literacy 127
7 Critical Democratic Literacy: Key Concepts and Pedagogy 129
8 Critical Democratic Literacy: Resources for Application

and Implementation 143
Index 154
ILLUSTRATIONS
Figures
Figure 3.1 Malala’s decision 51
Figure 3.2 Amy’s decision to share her markers using the criteria
of civic virtue 52
Figure 4.1 Primary source analysis: Votes for women 69
Figure 4.2 What does it mean to be “on task”? 74
Figure 4.3 Civic engagement blank concept web 75
Figure 4.4 Civic engagement concept web 76
Figure 4.5 Claiming the right to vote timeline 76
Figure 8.1 Sequencing in search of patterns 144
Figure 8.2 Primary source comprehension 145
Figure 8.3 Inquiry literacy 146
Figure 8.4 Historical readers’ theater 147
Tables
Table 3.1 Process guide for planning a unit on civic virtue 37
Table 3.2 The most important thing 41
Table 3.3 The most important thing: Focus on a person 43
Table 3.4 Learning objectives 45
Table 3.5 The most important thing: Focus on a person 48
Table 3.6 Heroes and heroines of civic virtue 49
x Illustrations
Table 4.1 Process guide for planning a unit on

civic engagement 60
Table 4.3 Biography timeline questions 73
Table 5.1 Process guide for planning a unit on civil discourse 86
Table 5.2 Civil discourse T-Chart 92
Table 5.4 Revised civil discourse T-Chart 97
Table 5.5 James Madison and the Bill of Rights inquiry 99
Table 5.6 Cell phone hypothesis template 100
Table 5.7 Cell phone hypothesis graphic organizer 101
Table 6.1 Process guide for planning a unit on
civil disobedience 108
Table 6.3 Civil disobedience definition 120
Table 6.4 Civil disobedience definition (revised) 121
Table 6.5 Selma to Montgomery March at Edmund Pettus Bridge 122
Table 6.6 Protests in Ukraine 123
Table 7.1 Civic virtue across the elementary grades: Additional
ideas for lessons on civic virtue 131
Table 7.2 Civic engagement across the elementary grades:
Additional ideas for lessons on civic engagement 134
Table 7.3 Civil discourse across the elementary grades:
Additional ideas for lessons on civil discourse 135
Table 7.4 Civil disobedience across the elementary grades:
Additional ideas for lessons on civil disobedience 138
Table 7.5 NCSS and IRA standards 140
Table 8.1 Content knowledge planning 149
Table 8.2 Pedagogical content knowledge planning 150
Table 8.3 Curricular knowledge planning 150
Table 8.4 Strategic knowledge planning 151
Table 8.5 Instructional process planning guide 151
PREFACE
Our children should learn the general framework of their government and then they
should know where they come in contact with the government, where it touches their
daily lives and where their influence is exerted on the government. It must not be a
distant thing, someone else’s business, but they must see how every cog in the wheel of
a democracy is important and bears its share of responsibility for the smooth running
of the entire machine.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Educating young citizens by bringing Critical Democratic Literacy (CDL) to

K–5 classrooms is crucial to the advancement of our democracy. This book has
been in our minds and in our teaching since, at least, 2007. By that time, we
had been colleagues at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) for more than
five years, with offices across the hall from one another. Over conversations in
that hallway and sometimes on the nearby ski slopes of Lake Tahoe, we (Kathy, a
social studies teacher educator, and Julie, a literacy teacher educator) talked about
our hopes and frustrations with education. We shared the belief that education,
becoming learned, is the way to make life better for oneself and for one’s com-
munity. Becoming educated is the way for our democracy (i.e., republic), to not
just survive, but to thrive, grow, and change with the increasing complexity of
our nation and world. We both also believed that working toward this goal was
consistently derailed in schools.
Kathy, a college history major, former social studies teacher, and now a social
studies teacher educator, witnessed the growing absence of social studies (includ-
ing the disciplines of civics, economics, geography, and history) in elementary
classrooms. For me, long inspired by philosopher John Dewey, as well as the cit-
izenship education purpose of social studies, I became increasingly frustrated by
xii Preface
the lack of social studies, and increasingly interested in figuring out what I could
do to get social studies back in the elementary classroom. The federal No Child
Left Behind (NCLB) legislation of 2001 intended to make sure that all students
received a quality education with high quality teachers, included high-stakes
accountability measures and the narrowing of the curriculum (what gets taught)
and narrowing of instructional practices (how it is taught). NCLB was interested
in students’ math and language arts scores and, in many elementary schools, these
two subject areas became the sole focus of the school day as schools were under-
standably fearful of the punitive aspects of NCLB. NCLB was followed by the
Race to the Top (RTT) federal legislation of 2009 that further intensified the
math and language arts focus and the punitive aspects of testing. This was the
environment that I was sending my elementary education preservice teachers
into. Many of these preservice teachers were already cautious and even uninter-
ested in teaching social studies. Many had uninspired memories of social studies,
remembering the chore of reading out of the textbook and answering questions
at the end of each section. These memories, combined with the classroom obser-
vations that were part of their teacher education program, in which they rarely
saw social studies being taught, created more frustration. Of course, there were
always a few memories of exciting simulations and field trips, and the gem of
being assigned to observe a teacher who had a passion for social studies and the
resilience to weather the accountability pressures. These teachers relied on their
professional knowledge, continued to be learners as they navigated accountability
pressures, and continued to teach powerful and purposeful social studies. They
were rare.
Julie, an elementary reading teacher, and now a literacy teacher educator, expe-
rienced the narrowing of literacy instruction from both perspectives. I taught
before high-stakes testing, and in my first year of teaching I was required to
integrate my content area instruction within my literacy teaching by relying on
state standards and research. There was no set program and I was not required to
use any basal series or textbooks; I collected and created my own materials based
on my students’ progress. My school community was engaged civically in the
larger school district and advocated on behalf of the students often. As teachers
we worked with parents and spoke before the school board and wrote letters in
support of structures and programs for our students. After a decade of creating a
school community with a shared governance model where teachers and parents
designed curriculum that created a dual language program, a multi-age grade
configuration, and opened up literacy instruction, we were subjected to a high-
stakes testing model. The high-stakes testing requirements altered the school and
my instruction irrevocably. The dual language program ceased, we were required
to use particular scripted programs, and we were evaluated based on how our stu-
dents scored on the tests (Pennington, 2004). As a teacher, I still worked to inte-
grate my literacy instruction with my social studies and science lessons, but the
reading program was set on a skills-based model and my teaching was monitored
Preface xiii
for program fidelity. After leaving the classroom and moving to teacher education
in 2002, history repeated itself as NCLB stretched across the country. Teachers
in my courses began describing their teaching in ways quite similar to my own
experiences. Some felt tied to the new requirements, while others sought ways
to maintain their autonomy. Teacher education became a way for me to assist
teachers in understanding not only literacy, but also how to remain educated and
resilient in the context of policy-driven instructional mandates.
These experiences and backgrounds were part of our conversations about what
we could do differently and perhaps how we might find a way to build on our
common interests—fostering the education of resilient, informed, and engaged
democratic citizens. We began to focus on integrating social studies and literacy as
one way to bring social studies back into the elementary classroom and to move
literacy education beyond a functional literacy approach. Working within a tradi-
tional teacher education program in a traditional university in which collabora-
tion and, particularly, co-teaching did not fit into teaching load requirements, we
looked for other opportunities. One semester, Julie sat in on Kathy’s social studies
methods course with a goal of providing a literacy voice and perspective to social
studies. It was informative for both of us, but not enough. During this time, we also
took the opportunity to work with a local school district conceptualizing a new
grant for the federally funded Teaching American History grant program. The new
grant focused specifically on creating teacher professional development centered
on the integration of literacy and history in the elementary grades. Developing
and teaching these professional development courses provided us with the space
to further conceptualize the idea of CDL, how it could become part of the ele-
mentary classroom, and the role of integrating literacy and social studies. We
worked with teachers representing all of the elementary grades, helping them to
develop and then teach lessons that used the social studies and literacy curricula to
support their students’ growth as citizens. We all worked on better understanding
the nuances of integration and the need to honor each of the disciplines being
integrated by teaching and assessing important content and skills.
We have also co-developed and co-taught a graduate course that is part of
UNR’s online Literacy Studies master’s program. This provides another space for
us to work with teachers and to continue developing the philosophy and practices
of CDL. We work with some talented teachers who have taken CDL into their
own classrooms. This includes first-grade teacher, Michelle Findley, who you will
meet in Chapter 2. This book is one more space for our work in CDL. It rep-
resents our current conceptualization of CDL and why we believe it is important.
We also believe that what we have included in the book will help teachers incor-
porate CDL, while continuing to work under numerous constraints.
xiv Preface
Purpose and Organization of the Book

The purpose of this book is to educate elementary teachers and students in CDL
using social studies and literacy integration. In particular, we focus exclusively on
the social studies content areas of history and civics. The book is designed for
both preservice teachers and practicing teachers who are interested in teaching
their students civic concepts in meaningful ways. The book includes eight chap-
ters that are organized into three distinct parts.
Part I: Understanding Critical Democratic Literacy

Part I of the book consists of Chapters 1 and 2 and provides you with a founda-
tional understanding of democracy, social studies and civic education, and critical
literacy. In addition, it explains the theory and basic principles of CDL, providing
background information on the role of democracy in education and gives an
example of a teacher who has applied CDL in her first-grade classroom. In par-
ticular, Chapter 1 details the need for CDL in today’s elementary schools, while
Chapter 2 explains the theoretical and philosophical framework that supports
CDL and demonstrates its application to elementary education. We know that
CDL is an unfamiliar term comprising familiar terms, and we spend substantial
time in Part I building a case for CDL, as well as defining it.
Part II: Teaching Critical Democratic Literacy

Part II of the book includes Chapters 3–6, with each chapter providing a detailed,
multi-part and integrated social studies and literacy lesson on one of four key
civic concepts related to CDL. Chapter 3 details a kindergarten series of les-
sons that teach the concept of civic virtue. Chapter 4 details a series of lessons
for third graders on the concept of civic engagement. Civil discourse is the key
civic concept in Chapter 5, which includes a detailed series of lessons for fourth
graders. Finally, Chapter 6 focuses on the civic concept of civil disobedience,
as taught through a series of lessons in fifth grade. In each of these four chap-
ters, the detailed lessons demonstrate how teachers plan, implement, and assess
their students, using a variety of social studies and literacy instructional strategies.
Each chapter begins by providing some social studies content, particularly histor-
ical content. The content overview, while not exhaustive, will get you started on
thinking about the social studies content that is necessary to plan and teach the
lessons. Just as Part I of this book provides an orientation to CDL, but includes
more information than you would take into your classroom, the content knowl-
edge at the beginning of each of the lesson chapters is in addition to the content
that the students will learn. This is deliberate. As teachers, we need plus-knowledge.
That is, we need to know more than we will teach: (1) to understand the larger
societal and educational goals, (2) to understand what content must be included
Preface xv
and what is optional in order to help students learn, (3) to know how to organize
content learning, and (4) to know what to include. We must know more about
the topic than just what the textbook or children’s literature sources include. You
will also notice sidebars in each of these chapters. They call attention to the ways
the lessons, be it topic or instructional strategy, address the goal of fostering CDL.
All of the lessons are designed using the National Council for the Social Studies
C3 Framework (National Council for the Social Studies [NCSS], 2013) and the
Common Core State Standards for English/Language Arts (National Governors
Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers
[NGA & CSSO], 2010). We recognize that these standards may or may not be
appropriate for your particular context, but we wanted to model the use of stan-
dards to guide the development of learning objectives and assessment, as well as
the choice of appropriate instructional methods.
Part III: Implementing Critical Democratic Literacy

Part III of the book includes Chapters 7 and 8. These two chapters end the book
by focusing on every teacher’s desire to add to their knowledge base. Implementing
CDL in your classroom requires thoughtful planning and preparation. Chapter 7
defines key concepts and principles related to CDL, including key instructional
strategies. Chapter 8 contains several planning guides to assist you in designing
lessons for your own classroom beyond the sample lessons provided in Part II.
We have used these planning guides in our professional development work. The
teachers we worked with have found these helpful, not just with CDL lessons, but
also with their integrative planning in general.
We hope you enjoy, are challenged by, and learn new ideas through your inter-
action with our book. In writing this book, we have enjoyed, been challenged,
and learned a great deal. We would love to hear your thoughts and ideas about
CDL and integrating social studies and literacy in your own classrooms.
References
National Council for the Social Studies. (2013). Social studies for the next generation:
Purposes, practices, and implications of the college, career, and civic life (C3) framework
for social studies state standards. Silver Spring, MD: Author.
National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief
State School Officers (NGA & CSSO). (2010). Common Core State Standards
for English Language Arts and literacy in history/social studies, science, and technical
subjects. Washington, DC: Authors. Retrieved from http://corestandards.org
/ELA-Literacy/.
Pennington, J. L. (2004). The colonization of literacy education: A story of reading in one
elementary school. New York, NY: Peter Lang.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We wish to thank Sue Davis, the grant director for the Teaching American History
grants in Reno, Nevada. The professional development work we did for the
grant was our first laboratory and supported our early forays into the integration
of social studies and literacy. We also thank Michelle Findley, an extraordinary
teacher, who continues to share her insights and her classroom practices with us.
UNR graduate student Hannah Carter tracked down numerous photo sources
for us and kept us organized. We thank her for all of her work.
At Routledge, we wish to thank our editor, Catherine Bernard, for her guid-
ance and support throughout the writing of this book.
PART I
Understanding Critical
Democratic Literacy
1
EDUCATING FOR CRITICAL
DEMOCRATIC LITERACY
I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves;
and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome
discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.
Thomas Jefferson
As Jefferson laid the foundation for a democratic society (or more accurately a
democratic republic or representative democracy), he understood the necessity
of empowering its people and that a democracy required informed citizens.
Galston (2001) explains that “democracies require democratic citizens, whose
specific knowledge, competences, and character would not be as well suited to
nondemocratic politics” (p. 217). Therefore, one of the long-standing purposes
of education, particularly public education, is the education of citizens, or as
Jefferson stated, “the people themselves.”
The United States is built upon political philosophies detailed within
the founding documents that clearly delineate what is required of its citizens,
beginning with the Declaration of Independence’s statement that governments
need the “consent of the governed” in order to exist. Collectively, we, as citizens,
are the “governed” and it is in our individual and collective best interests to make
sure that we are well informed so that the advice and consent we provide is
thoughtful, informed, and supportive of democratic ideals. Our role as citizens
is reinforced in the Preamble to the US Constitution as it begins with “we the
people” and not “we the states.” Privileging the people over the states was a
deliberate decision made by the framers to strengthen the role of the individual
citizen in political and civic life. For example, the House of Representatives, as
4 Understanding Critical Democratic Literacy
defined in the Constitution, is the people’s house. Its members represent the
people of the United States, not the states. While we may elect representatives
in our republican form of government, those representatives must be chosen by
informed voters wisely and they must continue to be thoughtfully advised of the
decisions that they should make to benefit the people of the nation, the nation
itself, and in world affairs.
To fulfill the call of our founding documents, we need to be informed
about our political institutions, their responsibilities, and their limits. We should
understand key ideas, including how the idea of separation of powers differs from
the idea of a balance of powers. We should know what our political and human
rights are and we should possess the dispositions to value those rights and retain
the skills needed to protect them for ourselves and others. As important as it is to
be informed, we also need to knowledgeably and skillfully participate in political
and civic life. The ability to productively engage in civic life is not innate. It has
to be taught. We need to learn how to do this, and we need to help our students
learn what is necessary for their participation. Educating citizens is an immense
and worthy task. Our purpose as teachers is to educate citizens with all that they
need to fulfill this most important role. According to Ichilov (2011), we should
educate citizens in order to liberate and empower them to live their lives fully
through a strong civic life. One way we can do this is through the disciplines of
social studies and literacy.
Civic Education and Social Studies

Civic or citizenship education focuses on the content knowledge, democratic skills,
and democratic dispositions required by educated citizens. Civic education can be
a part of the formal curriculum in any academic discipline, as well as the informal
curriculum. Examples in the informal curriculum include experiences like student
council, classroom rules, playground policies, and service projects. However, civic
education is most often found as part of the social studies curriculum. Social
studies is often defined as the integrated study of the social sciences and humanities
for the purpose of civic competence (Engle & Ochoa, 1988). There are three
key components to this definition. First, social studies includes integration. For
example, it is difficult to teach a really important event in history, like Westward
Expansion, and just focus on history. The geographic themes of movement, place,
and human-environment interactions; economic concepts that examine patterns
and varied types of economic activity; political science ideas related to power
and governance; and even the critical challenges to the term Manifest Destiny, all
contribute to a deeper examination and understanding of this period in history.
The second component in the definition of social studies is the reliance on the
social sciences and humanities. As illustrated in the Westward Expansion example,
social studies includes a variety of social science disciplines, including economics,
geography, history, and political science, as well as the behavioral sciences and
Educating for Critical Democratic Literacy 5
anthropology. Many teachers choose to ground their social studies lessons and
units in one discipline, often history. Finally, the third component of social studies
is its purpose—the education of citizens. In short, we learn for a higher purpose
and that purpose is to fulfill our responsibilities as citizens. This can be challenging
for elementary students who often believe that the purpose of their learning is to
perform on a test. While we operate from this understanding of social studies, we
should also note that this definition is not accepted by everyone in social studies.
The rejection comes in part from those who believe that the components of
integration and civic competence in the definition detract from the purity of the
social science disciplines of history, political science, geography, and economics,
among others, and dilutes the purpose of learning, as well as the actual learning of
any of the fields (Ravitch, 2000). Although we appreciate this concern, we believe
that the integrity of the disciplines can be preserved, and even seen as more rele-
vant, when integrated effectively and for the purpose of civic life.
Education for the purpose of citizenship includes an examination of the rights
and responsibilities of citizenship, the understanding of citizenship in terms of
both status (legal and procedural) and practice (way of life), its historical and
philosophical foundations, as well as knowledge of current laws and public
policy (Niemi, Sanders, & Whittington, 2005; Weiss, Lutkus, Grigg, & Niemi,
2001). Within social studies, civic education also addresses the importance of
competencies or skills. According to Torney-Purta (2002), “Schools achieve
the best results in fostering civic engagement when they rigorously teach civic
content and skills . . .” (p. 203). These skills include intellectual or cognitive
skills, commonly referred to as critical thinking and higher order thinking skills
(Patrick, 1999). This includes the ability to describe, analyze, and interpret infor-
mation from a wide variety of sources. In addition to intellectual skills, Patrick
(1999) and Hess (2008), note the importance of participatory skills that help
students effectively engage and communicate in civic life. Finally, an educated
citizenry possesses certain democratic dispositions and displays a democratic char-
acter, and represents the beliefs and attitudes that contribute to a democratic
tradition, including valuing justice, the equality and dignity of each individual,
diversity, respecting and protecting individual rights for all, and the protection
and promotion of the public good (Patrick, 1999). A person who holds the basic
components of an educated democratic citizen possesses knowledge about his
or her rights and responsibilities in society. In addition, he or she is disposed to
preserve those rights and responsibilities for self and others, and has the requisite
competencies necessary to work toward the preservation of a democratic society.
However, it is important to note that these components may or may not take on
a critical perspective personally or when enacted in the classroom (Tyson, 2003).
That is, the particular content, skills, and dispositions we choose to teach our
students and how we teach them may or may not take on a critical perspective.
Westheimer and Kahne (2004) developed a framework that described three
types of citizens—personally responsible, participatory, and justice-oriented.
Only the justice-oriented citizen takes on a critical perspective because civic

engagement occurs within the context of promoting social change by working
with others in examining and working to change systems and institutions that
oppress the natural and political rights of others. For example, elementary students
may learn that good citizens follow the rules; following the rules makes them
personally responsible. But, what if the rules are bad? What if they take away the
rights of others? In those situations, being personally responsible is not enough.
Participatory citizens in a sixth-grade class may volunteer once a semester to serve
lunch at a homeless shelter. That is a good thing to do; it helps the community.
But, according to Westheimer and Kahne, it does not go far enough because the
cause of homelessness in the community is not examined. It does not ask what
we can do to end homelessness. Another way to promote a more critical per-
spective in civic education is to incorporate multicultural democratic citizenship
education. Parker (1996, 2001) and Marri (2003) note that multicultural demo-
cratic citizenship education provides specific attention to the necessity of diversity,
membership in small and large publics, and the treatment of democracy as a path,
not as a completed journey. Note that in this description, diversity is addressed
as something more than an existing condition in society. Diversity is an asset and
is necessary for healthy democracies. Further, to preserve and promote this asset,
individuals are members of many communities or publics. The largest public is
their membership as residents and citizens of the United States. This large public
is also the only legalistic membership. Our citizenship or residency is linked to
the nation, not to our state or city of residence. The state and city are two types
of small publics that also have civic goals. We also belong to other types of small
publics like ethnic communities, and even issues-based communities. Finally, this
description also helps us remember that democracy is not achieved. As such, we
are not done with our work. Democracy is a path that we continue to walk,
finding new opportunities and realities that will help us redefine democratic
societies and the necessary citizenship education.
Literacy
Historically, literacy has been closely related to democracy, as Graff (1987) states,
“the Western tradition of an educated electorate, schooling in literacy as prepa-
ration for citizenship, and the equation of literacy and democracy were born [in
Athens, Greece]” (p. 23). Centuries later, early literacy goals in the United States
were aligned with definitions of literacy congruent with learning to read and write
in order to become good citizens (Smith, 1896), as a means of assimilation (Graff,
1987), and as a mechanism for establishing an educated workforce (Guerra, 1998).
In many ways, these definitions of literacy can be seen as functional. Functional
literacy is bound by the needs and expectations for competency in particular set-
tings (Scribner, 1984). Often it is relegated to a skills and task type of view of lit-
eracy, decontextualized and focused on testing in a scientific or objective manner,
or involving basic literacy tasks such as completing forms, which depict only
a rudimentary level of literacy (Lytle, 1991). Narrowing literacy down to skills
such as reading and retelling texts verbatim can prevent in-depth understanding
and application of the content read. Reading simply to perform simplistic tasks
is important, but in order to be a part of society individuals must be able to read
for their own purposes and evaluate information in order to make decisions.
Functional literacy instruction can create semiliterate and functionally literate
individuals. Macedo (1993) describes the semiliterate individual as someone who
may be well read in one area but unable to “read the world” or apply their knowl-
edge outside of one area, while a functional literate is one “groomed primarily
to meet the requirements of our contemporary society” (p. 189). The historian
Graff states,“The schools have never attempted to provide more than ‘basic,’‘func-
tional’ literacy abilities. Literacy has never, in Western history, been concerned
with providing a grounding in skills that were expected to be developed into
higher, self-advancing critical tools.” (1987, p. 397). Education can be described as
maintaining the status quo, ensuring that students are educated in order to serve
the society’s needs as determined by the institutions of schooling. At the other
end of the spectrum lies critical literacy. Critical literacy can be viewed as a “polit-
ical commitment to democratic and emancipatory forms of education” (McLaren
& Lankshear, 1993, p. 380). Critical literacy strives to educate students beyond
functional basic skills so they can participate, evaluate, and shape their worlds.
Today, the conceptual understandings of literacy, (e.g., critical literacy, multiliter-
acies) continue to evolve ( Janks, 2000) and press past the boundaries of reading
and writing. Within these expanding areas lay the intricate distinctions of literacy
in relation to culture (Clark & Flores, 2007; Freire & Macedo, 1987; Heath, 1983;
McMillon & McMillon, 2004), to personal fulfillment (Guerra, 1998), to power
and social justice (Morrell, 2007; Scribner, 1984), and to personal achievement and
national issues (Arnove & Graff, 2001; Collins & Blot, 2003; Luke, 2000). While
these conceptions of civic education and literacy thrive in some educational con-
texts and in theory, they have been constrained by policy movements during the
past decade. Whereas literacy began as a functional tool for citizens to participate
in democratic societies, today the retreat back to functional literacy connotes a
reduction back to fundamentals out of apprehension rather than necessity.
Barriers to Educating Our Developing Citizens

Our current work in schools is insufficient for the preservation and progress of a
democratic United States. Our democracy will not survive, let alone thrive, simply
because it is a political and social institution; it needs to advance and be supported
by informed, resilient, and educated citizens. Unfortunately, we are teaching and
our students are learning in elementary schools that are not teaching social studies
because they are encased in a back-to-basics, one-size-fits-all, measurement-driven
environment that places our students and our democracy at risk. There has been
a crisis in the classroom founded on the current era bound by measurable skills
pressed into discrete pieces of information to be tested (Association, 1999; Janesick,
2007). The accountability movement, and schools’ subsequent implementation
decisions, have led to time constraints (e.g., 90-minute literacy block) protecting
some disciplines (e.g., literacy and math) at the expense of others, specifically
social studies (Howard, 2003; VanFossen, 2005; Vogler, et al, 2007). High-stakes
test-driven pedagogies do not measure conceptual or complex knowledge or
critical thinking; they focus on recall and comprehension only in particular sub-
jects, and are completely insufficient for the education of citizens. Amid calls
for twenty-first century literacies (Kallus, 2011) enacted within a global society
(Blackburn & Clark, 2007; Street, 2004), institutional, oversimplified education
requires contraction and simplification of ideas and fails to attend to the sociocul-
tural, political, and historical context of the twenty-first century.
The Accountability Era: Civic Education and Literacy in

Elementary Schools
No Child Left Behind (NCLB) brought high-stakes testing to elementary
schools (Kornhaber, 2004). Both civic education and literacy education in
the United States have been subject to the existing policy-based test-driven
environment and thus woefully inadequate in preparing the kind of citizens
required by our democracy. While literacy has been relegated to a simplistic
functional view that seeks to measure low-level skills rather than critical
thinking and multiple literacies (Behrman, 2006;Tierney, 2008), civic education
(as a component of the social studies curriculum) is either completely miss-
ing from numerous schools in favor of more time for a test-driven math
and literacy curriculum (Fitchett & Heafner, 2010; VanFossen, 2005; Wills,
2007) or relegated to the recall of basic information (Vogler & Virtue, 2007).
Literacy instruction was guided by policies that served as backseat drivers for
instructional practices and assessments. As Calfee states,
. . . in 2002 as NCLB, the federal government instituted programs of

standardized testing and school-level accountability that now significantly
influence “what counts”—what is taught, how it is taught, and how it is
assessed. The greatest impact of NCLB has been on reading instruction in
the elementary grades (2014, p. 1).
The focus on high-stakes testing pressured teachers to teach to the test

and focus on ensuring that students were competent in multiple choice test
formats, thus removing aspects of critical thinking and moving to lower
level skills. The use of programmatic instruction became the norm for most
teachers as they were required to adhere to teacher proof scripts and constant
assessments.
As the literacy curriculum narrowed, schools had little to no time available

for social studies, including civic education. There are numerous reasons for this,
most notably accountability pressures. States, school districts, and administrators
are requiring and monitoring extended blocks of time devoted to math and lit-
eracy. Further, as many schools adopt packaged math and literacy curricula, some
of it heavily scripted, teachers find that deviating from a script is an additional
barrier to the possibility of integrating social studies into mandated literacy and
math blocks of time. While some teachers bemoan the loss of social studies, oth-
ers are less troubled because of their own discomfort teaching social studies. For
many, social studies is seen as a boring and irrelevant subject (Goodlad, 1984);
and, given how it is often taught, as a distant and disconnected set of facts with
no relevance to the current world of the student or society, Goodlad’s findings
are not surprising. Further, eliminating social studies or reconceptualizing it as
an all-encompassing academic subject has made what limited space there was for
social studies now the place for many supplemental programs and curricula such
as drug awareness and school assemblies. Categorizing these experiences as social
studies makes it easier to preserve dedicated time for more easily defined and/
or tested subjects. The accountability era, accompanied by these additional issues,
may have a negative impact on citizenship education.
As levels of education, which include civic-related content knowledge, have
increased over time, the youth vote remains low (Burden, 2009; CIRCLE, 2006),
as do many other forms of civic engagement (CIRCLE, 2006). This lack of
engagement is related to a number of factors, including youth definitions of civic
and political engagement (e.g., social networking, volunteerism) differing from
traditional models (e.g., voting), as well as more troubling factors such as a dis-
juncture between what youth were taught about civic and political life and what
they experienced in their daily lives (Rubin, 2007). For example, to learn that
being a good citizen includes following the law, and then to see elected officials
at the local and national levels violate the law is a disappointment. To learn that
the 14th Amendment promises equal protection under the law, while witnessing
almost daily occurrences of family and community members not offered equal
protection—because of age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic
status—is more than a disappointment. While our elementary students are not
yet voters, civic education cannot wait until their last years of high school. The
requisite knowledge, skills, and dispositions must be addressed from kindergarten
on. Teaching the complex and abstract ideas found in the social studies disciplines,
as well as critical literacy, has the potential to empower our students in numerous
ways, including in their civic lives.
The Current Standards Movements

The current standards movement led by the Common Core State Standards
(CCSS) continues to concentrate on just language arts and math, disregarding
the content of both social studies and science. The CCSS for English/Language
Arts (CCSS ELA) emphasize the reading of informational text in the content
areas such as Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects
(http://www.corestandards.org/assets/CCSSI_ELAStandards.pdf) yet the CCSS
ELA positions those subjects in service to literacy. While informational text can be
about a social studies topic, the CCSS ELA are still centered on listening, speak-
ing, reading, and writing skills in relation to social studies. The CCSS ELA state,
“Beginning in grade 6, the literacy standards allow teachers of ELA, history/social
studies . . . to use their content area expertise to help students meet the particular
challenges of reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language in their respective
fields.” Therefore, the standards remain dedicated to literacy skills not on content
areas themselves, and call for teachers to rely on their knowledge of content.
In response to the exclusion of social studies from the CCSS, professional
organizations representing social studies education and science education have
recently created new standards prioritizing their content areas that are compatible
with the CCSS ELA. The National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), the
national professional organization representing social studies educators, recently
created Social Studies for the Next Generation: Purposes, Practices, and Implications
of the College, Career, and Civic Life [emphasis added] (C3) Framework for Social
Studies State Standards (NCSS, 2013) that provide explicit attention to four key
disciplinary areas within social studies (i.e., civics, economics, geography, history),
situated within the purpose of citizenship education, and complementary to both
the CCSS ELA standards and the NCSS Curriculum Standards (2010). Note that
the title of these new standards brings civics into a place of prominence, along
with the CCSS focus on career and college. It should also be noted that the C3
Framework is not a content standards document. Rather, the C3 Framework
focuses on the process of inquiry and the development of disciplinary inquiry
skills across the social studies. More specific social studies curriculum and con-
tent standards are available in the 2010 NCSS Curriculum Standards that focus
on social studies concepts, the voluntary national standards created by separate
social science disciplines (e.g., the National Standards for Civics and Government,
National Standards in Economics, National History Standards, National
Geography Standards & Skills), as well as the local content standards developed in
most states. For our purposes and in this book, we rely on the CCSS ELA and the
C3 Framework for Social Studies. As you spend time with the detailed lessons in
Chapters 3–6, you will note that they are aligned with these two standards docu-
ments.We know that not all states have adopted the CCSS and the C3 Framework
standards so we encourage you to use the standards that are required in your
school setting. Two additional sources for standards are the NCSS Curriculum
Standards and the International Reading Association, and we provide an overview
of those standards in Chapter 7. We believe that the current standards movements
open up the possibility of a return to the integration of social studies and liter-
acy. While not all states adopted the CCSS, and some early adopters have since
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cuttingly clear.
“Her slight lameness alone prevents her being placed in some
position of the greatest trust. That room only is sacred from all of
your rattle-headed social friends. I trust her implicitly.”
“I begin to understand you,” gravely said Vreeland.
“Under the guise of enjoying my life and living up to my prosperity, I
am to hide the momentous secret stock business carried on there.”
“Precisely,” soberly said Elaine Willoughby.
“The office business below?” he hesitatingly said.
“Ah! I have given up months to the study of this new arrangement,”
thoughtfully said the Queen of the Street. “You are to be master of
your own hours.
“Once a day, however, you are to show up at the downtown office.
Wyman knows that you will be busied at home a great deal. You will
have no awkward questions asked. Endicott will watch the downtown
affair.”
“The firm signature?” he said.
“Will never be used. You will sign ‘Harold Vreeland, Trustee,’ and the
securities handled daily will be delivered to me at the ‘Circassia,’ on
my list of purchases and sales. Your checks and my daily statements
are to correspond.”
“In other words, I am, as trustee, your hidden broker?” Vreeland said.
“Under my daily orders,” she gravely answered. “And you are not to
deny that you indulge in private speculations. You are not even to
avoid Hathorn’s nearest friends.
“Even if Mrs. Volney McMorris should steal into your breakfast room,
or a bevy of the gay young matrons, or—even a pretty anonyma—
your record as a ‘preux chevalier’ in gayest New York will not suffer.
You are to be a young man à la mode.” Vreeland bowed in a grave
silence.
That night, when he returned to New York City, to blindly obey his
strange patroness, Vreeland’s bosom was big with his happy
secrets.
“I am to hold the hidden fort ‘of the Sugar treasure.’”
He divined a bitter campaign against Hathorn. And he then dreamed
a strange, sweet, wicked dream. Alida Hathorn’s stolen visits—with
Justine, perhaps—as a dark-eyed devil laughing over the downfall of
his enemy’s wife.
“I will make my own little game,” he laughed.
CHAPTER VII.
“PLUNGER” VREELAND’S GAY LIFE, “UNDER THE ROSE.”
Before the February snows were congealed into those dirty flakes of
ice and street mud which are an evidence of the “effectiveness” of
New York’s Street Cleaning department, the “top floor” of the Elmleaf
bachelor apartment was considered to set the pace for the gayest of
the bachelor apartments of Gotham. The hidden programme was
even literally carried out.
Outwardly, the daily life of that fortunate individual, Mr. Harold
Vreeland, had undergone little change. Once a day he duly occupied
his desk at the downtown office, using alternately the morning and
afternoon fraction.
He proved a very “tough nut to crack” for the local gossips, however.
There was a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde flavor of mystery clinging to the
audacious young “Westerner.” The slow trots of the “Locust” and the
old senile wiseacres of the “Sentinel” clubs wondered at his calm
demeanor, his easily acquired repose of the caste of “Vere de Vere.”
Vreeland was posing now as a “fixed star.”
Not even Bradstreet, or Dun, could seize upon any public
delinquencies to the detriment of his “business character,” and yet,
Harold Vreeland had rapidly acquired the reputation of a “devil of a
fellow.” He had, like Byron, his “hours of idleness.”
There was, too, an outward prosperous harmony in the busy office of
Wyman and Vreeland, now packed with clerks and forging to the
front as a house of unexampled strength.
There was a sober, quiet effectiveness in the firm, which shamed the
nervous “bucket shop” decadents, who were only noisy, screaming
gulls, clamoring over the financial sea for “any old thing” in the way
of floating pabulum.
It was undeniable that the hats went off to right and left, as Vreeland
paced the sacred precincts of Wall, Broad and Pine. A rising man—a
successful man—a man of mark!
“A safe man, sir! A wonderful young financier! A man whose outside
operations are enormous!” gravely said the cashier of the
Mineralogical Bank to his esteemed colleague, the cashier of Henry
Screws & Company.
“You see!” confidentially said the speaker, between two mouthfuls of
“hasty lunch,” “the house is bound not to speculate, but—Vreeland,
as an individual, is to-day, perhaps the heaviest single operator of all
the young men of New York.” The young man’s fame was duly
noised abroad.
“Where does he get all his backing?” grunted the other, as he
dashed down a tankard of “bitter.”
“He owns the half of Montana,” dreamily said the Mineralogical’s
Cerberus.
“And so, he is founded on the eternal rocks.”
It was not half an hour until this brilliant new canard was traveling
like a winged locust—and, it soon achieved the voyage—even to the
jungles of Harlem—and spread all over Gotham like the Canada
thistle attacking a poorhouse farm. A new financial Napoleon had
appeared.
The self-possessed Vreeland was astounded at the many offered
social honors, the crowding attractive business temptations, and all
the rosy lures now thronging his pathway. He knew not as yet the
whole force of a lie “well stuck to,” which often treads down the
modest and shamefaced truth.
And even the agnostic sneer of “parvenu” was spared him. He was
suave, careful, chary in making enemies, and strictly non-committal.
His conduct toward Elaine Willoughby absolutely disarmed even that
vigilant social scavenger, Mrs. Volney McMorris.
For, many other men were just as often seen on parade in Elaine’s
opera box. Senator Alynton, General Morehouse, U. S. A., Judge
Arbuckle, and other social heavy guns oftener pressed the cushions
of her victoria, or nestled under her sleigh robes.
The Lady of Lakemere’s dinners were always stocked with a half
dozen masculine “lions” of deep-toned and majestic growl. There
were also two or three society swells—“howling swells”—who
represented the “froth and foam,” and these young men, with
vacuous smiles and heaven-kissing collars, impartially formed the
“bodyguard” at theatre parties, and a gilded Spartan band, deftly
“cleaned up” the debris of the midnight spread in the Waldorf supper
room.
Elaine had a peculiar fashion of segregating the lions and dudes,
and sending each kind of social animal forth radiant with self-
satisfaction, after a happy five minutes passed with her alone—in the
pearl boudoir.
So, calm and serene, Harold Vreeland duly came and went. Men
wondered that he so freely stood back to let “other fellows take up
the running,” and Augustus Van Renslayer sagely summed up the
verdict of the younger “women hunters” of New York: “He is no
marrying man. He lives in an eternal picnic of his own—up there—in
the Elmleaf.” It was vaguely understood that Sardanapalus was
Vreeland’s patron saint, and Bacchus and Nero his household gods.
The charm had worked but too well.
And the women of Gotham, those bright-eyed heart-wreckers, were
all fain to agree with the catfish-eyed Van Renslayer. There was a
fatal impartiality in the easy gallantry of the wary Princeton graduate.
Liberal, dashing, mindful of all the petits agrémens, he was no
woman’s slave—and yet, all women’s friend. If no single heart
quivered at his master touch, still, there were many arms open to
him selon son métier. A fatal curiosity led many a pretty Columbus
on voyages of discovery to the Elmleaf—whereat Bagley duly
grinned.
That famous housewarming had been a marvel in its delicate
recognition of the monde ou l’on s’ennuie, and the judicious hilarity
of the Demi-Vierges.
For the return of Mr. James Potter, now finally severed from the
flagging firm of Hathorn & Wolfe, had furnished Vreeland with a
brilliant new idea.
There was a superb “First Part,” in which Mrs. Volney McMorris
lightly and amiably matronized the bravest ladies of the “swim”—who
had long been burning to inspect the splendors of the upper floor of
the Elmleaf.
Among the forty guests of the “official” programme, were such
undeniably good form clubmen as Potter, Wiltshire, Merriman, and
Rutherstone. They and their gilded brothers suggested the names of
willing goddesses, and so it was that Miss Katharine VanDyke
Norreys, the “staccato” Californian heiress—Mrs. Murray Renton, of
Cleveland—and several other detached, semi-detached, and
detachable women “of spotless reputation,” joyed with the host’s
convives, dipped their laughing, rosy lips in his Roederer, and
pattered with their lightly-treading feet over his airy domain of a
wondrously refined luxury.
It was nearly one o’clock when the grave Bagley had closed the last
carriage door and sent the two policemen away with “a heavenly
smile on their faces”—and a five-dollar bill clutched in each brawny
hand.
And then, on softly-rolling rubber wheels, came slipping along under
the shadows of clubhouse and virtuous mansions of drowsy
decorum, the pick of Cupid’s Dashing Free Lances—the very flower
of the Light Infantry of Love. This “Pickett’s charge” of these demure
Demi-Vierges was successful.
It was the solemn Bagley who marveled as he sped these “shining
ones” on their way up the stair at the struggling odors of “Y’lang
Y’lang,” “Atkinson’s White Rose,” “Wood Violets,” and “Peau
d’Espagne.”
For days, that scented staircase recalled the “informal visit” of the
regent moon, Miss Dickie Doubleday; the audacious Tottie
Thistledown, the fair queen of light heels; Nannie Bell, the mignonne
chanteuse, and several other disciples of the “partly” and, alas, the
“altogether.” The girdle of Venus was en évidence that happy night.
It is true that the glass globes automatically shrank up in affright
toward the ceiling, as these flashing-eyed birds fluttered in and burst
upon the gay banquet “mid the bright bowls.” The Elmleaf never
sheltered a lighter-hearted crew.
It was left to the imperturbable Bagley, next day, “to gather up the
fragments,” and headaches, heartaches, and visions of “woven
paces and waving arms,”—with sky-pointed toes and glimpses ne
quid nimis of clocked stockings and sleek tricots, were fairly divided
among the gallant swains who “did not go home till morning.”
It was in this jovial manner that Vreeland vindicated the public
character of un homme galant, which his strange feverish-hearted
patroness seemed to thrust upon him. And he wondered as he
obeyed—but, the game went bravely on.
There were some seriously tender interludes in the “evening’s
hilarity.” Miss Dickie Doubleday, in the empanchement de son âme
and, watchfully jealous of that dimpled star, Stella Knox, had quickly
effected a truce, of an amatory character, with the loved and lost
Jimmie Potter, who had lived to learn that her heart was “a bicycle
made for two”—if not more.
“After the ball,” Potter ostentatiously lingered to smoke a last weed
with Vreeland, who had opened for him alone the last unprofaned
corner of his domain—that Bluebeard chamber which was “strictly
business.” He knew that Potter was secret, safe, and gamely silent.
“Ah! my boy!” sighed Potter. “I see how you carry on your own
private plunging. What a fool Hathorn was—to quarrel with the
Willoughby!
“Now that I’m out I don’t mind to tell you that the old firm is going
downhill very fast. Hathorn lost his luck when he cut the golden cord.
“I can’t make him out. He has grown strangely reckless and haggard.
“And the wife is, to say the least, un peu insouciante. You know of
that little yacht racket?”—and he whispered a few telling words.
“Well! Alida Hathorn was the Veiled Lady. I have it from the man who
is to be the sailing master of the ‘Aphrodite’ next year.
“And the blinded Hathorn is obstinately shadowing Mrs. Willoughby,
still following up her game, digging up her past, and backing up all
his wife’s acidulated slanders.
“When I found this to be a truth, and saw these damned guttersnipe
Hawkshaws slipping in and out of his private office, I decided to
quietly withdraw—for a quieter and a gamer woman never drew
breath than Elaine Willoughby.
“I wish to God that I had married Alida,” burst out the honest reveler,
whose relaxed nerves had unsealed the fountains of truth. “For now,
I fear, she will be every man’s woman—if she don’t pull up. She’s left
all alone, and Hathorn’s one idea is revenge upon Elaine Willoughby.
“And for her sake, he bitterly hates you. Look out for him. For he has
lost all self-control. You are wise to play your outside game here in
safety. Hathorn would not hesitate to bribe your own people.
“I know he had that big lump of deviltry, Justine Duprez, in his pay.
He even took her over to Paris the summer Mrs. Willoughby went out
to Colorado. I’m glad I’m out of the stock business. You’ll tire of it,
and with your money why do you fool with it?”
The young Crœsus arose unsteadily, and said, “Come to breakfast
with me at the Union to-morrow—that is to say, to-day,” he chuckled.
“Well, let us have one hour’s poker—you and me—and with no limit
—just for fun.
“You owe me a revenge. Now, remember—I have warned you. Look
out that Hathorn don’t get onto your little game—dig a pit—and drop
you in it.
“He’s grown to be an ether drinker now, and his wife is as cold-
hearted an egoist as breathes. Just dead gone on herself—and her
own pretty bodily mechanism. If he ever gets in an ugly money
corner, she won’t give him a sou marqué.
“Now, Elaine Willoughby has ‘held up her end of the log’ against
some of the stiffest men in Wall Street. She is smarter than a whole
stack of Hathorns. I know in the outside companies that I am director
of, she has loads of the best paying permanent investments.
“And if she ever catches Hathorn nosing into her affairs, or yours, for
I know your firm does a part of her business, she will smash up Fred
Hathorn like the ‘Mary Powell’ going over a rowboat.”
With an affected unconcern, Vreeland saw his friend disappear in a
night hour club coupé, after swearing fidelity to the poker tryst.
But his heart was beating wildly, as he crawled upstairs in the gray of
the dawn. “That’s her game; defense and revenge! I wonder if
Hathorn really traced her out to Colorado, and has he an inkling of
Alva Whiting?
“He’s not above levying a blackmail. And I am in some strange way
her pawn in this veiled duel to the death, a duel between a man and
woman who may have often rested in each other’s arms with vows of
deathless love.
“It may be only self-protection that made her shove him off on Alida
VanSittart. How she hurried on that marriage?
“Was it jealousy, fear, or some of her craft? And I am used—used
and only half trusted.
“Wait! Lady Mine! If Justine only plays me fair, I will have got all your
game—and then I’ll be master of you, Lakemere and the money.
Once inside your lines, then you will never be able to throw me off.”
He was beginning to see the threads of the swift current now.
His own expression, “inside your lines,” haunted him through his
three hours’ sleep, his bath, and early breakfast. Vreeland had the
nerves of the Iron Duke, and he burned for a few words with Justine,
who was to seek him that very morning, at her nest in South Fifth
Avenue.
For there was a southward trip impending, and he wished to give his
one faithful spy her orders.
“If I could only get at the wires in her room! If I could only manage to
tap her talk and messages to old Endicott! For this woman here in
the office is surely her spy. Bagley may be.
“By Heavens! There is just one chance. And her mail! Justine may
help me. What can she not do?”
His heart burned with a dull jealousy of that past when Justine had
aided Hathorn on his upward way. “If she could only get around the
janitor of the ‘Circassia,’ and the letter carrier. What money can do, I
can aid her in, and she must do the rest—” He closed his eyes in a
fierce glow of sensual irritation, for the Parisienne had already forged
chains upon him which, with all his cold craft, he could not lightly
break away from.
“She is not to be resisted—if she plays her own game. First the trip,
then the other idea. But I could never handle this pale-faced St.
Agnes—this lame bundle of all the virtues. I must have some one
else here to watch Miss Mary Kelly—this convent-bred marvel.
“Why not find a smart woman to be my private stenographer and one
of the right kind? She could also keep an eye on Bagley and the little
dove-eyed devotee. Justine may help me to the right woman. I’ll tell
her all.” He began to see Lakemere moving toward him.
The gilded child of fashion was first at the tryst, and Justine Duprez
threw herself into her secret lover’s arms with a glad cry of triumph,
when ten o’clock brought her to the meeting place. “If I could only
come to you,” she fiercely sighed—“in your palace home!
“But wait—wait—till we have netted my lady. I have news now to
make your heart dance.”
The panting woman drew from her breast a scrawl of paper, on
which she had copied even the office marks. “This telegram came
this morning. You see that it is dated Washington.” Vreeland’s heart
bounded as he read the words: “Arlington—to-morrow. Don’t fail.”
Was it an appointment—a lover’s secret call?
He could have shouted with triumph, as he gazed on the signature,
“Alynton,” for a messenger had brought him a note at the moment of
his departure to meet Justine. His patroness had fallen into a snare.
“I am going to Pittsburg to-night. Come up and dine. I will give you
your orders for a week.”
He drew out the note, and glanced at the firm pen stroke. “Can
Alynton be the father of Alva Whiting?” he growled.
He dropped his head on the table, while Justine took off her hat and
wraps with the easy insouciance of a Camille. He was mad with
mingled greed and jealousy.
“Perhaps! Alynton’s father was an irascible magnate of enormous
wealth. They are about the same age. He may have feared his
father’s wrath, for he naturally should make a political marriage. Ah!
my lady, you have lied to me.
“If it is not the old secret of two guilty hearts, then there is the
gordian knot of the great Sugar intrigue in this.”
His thoughts thronged upon him with lightning rapidity, and as her
head lay on his arm, he gave the triumphant Frenchwoman her
orders.
“Our whole future hangs on your adroitness. You must find out what
goes on between them. In a hotel you have a far better chance than
in either of her two homes.”
Vreeland murmured that in her ears which made the vicious
woman’s cheeks redden.
“Bah! all we women are alike,” she sneered. “But if she slyly sends
me out?” There was a gloomy pause.
“I do not think that she suspects you,” finally answered Vreeland.
“Telegraph me here what you dare to.
“And bring me all the other news in person. Now, tell me all you
know of this very saintly young Mary Kelly.”
His voice had the ring of anxiety. “I have had the janitor and the
letter-carrier watch her. They are both friends of mine,” modestly
murmured Justine.
“She lives near us, on a side street, with her old mother. And never
goes out with a man, except Officer Daly. Daly, the Roundsman. A
beau garçon, too; but it may be only a flirtation Catholique à
l’Irelandaise.
“I have often followed her myself to church. And she comes once a
week to Madame. They always look over papers together.”
“And that smug devil Bagley,” cried Vreeland, “only comes to the
door, leaves me the pacquet of bills, and does not even see
Madame. He gets an order for the money, and then returns later with
the receipted bills.”
Justine was back at the Circassia before Vreeland left her rooms to
engage in his little joust at poker with Mr. James Potter, whose
morning diet of red pepper, cracked ice, and soda water had at last
brought him up to the normal, after several sporadic cocktails.
All through the quiet duel of cards, Vreeland was haunted by the twin
obstacles, Bagley and Miss Mary Kelly. “Bagley is a perfect servant,
and I can not get any excuse to rid myself of him. My secrets are not
kept where he can reach them,” mused Vreeland.
“The girl I surely dare not displace; but I can get around them both, if
I have the right kind of a woman here near me. I have the excuse of
my ‘outside correspondence’ and social affairs.
“Miss Kelly is sacred to the affairs of this cool-headed patroness of
mine. And even Elaine can not object.
“It would ‘give away’ her veiled espionage on me. Yes, that’s the
plan! I can advertise; pick one or two out of a hundred women and
then try them on,” he craftily smiled, “and only begin my real
operations when I have found the right one and the two young
women have struck up an intimacy.” He laughed. “My pretty spy shall
watch the placid young saint.”
Vreeland tossed upon his bed that night, and reflected upon the
singular methods of his covert business.
A list of stocks sent to him by messenger, or personally delivered by
Mrs. Willoughby, to be bought and sold, with seemingly no guiding
rule; all the checks signed only by him as “Harold Vreeland, Trustee,”
and all the securities daily deposited, after due receipt and tag, in
Mrs. Willoughby’s steel vault compartment at the Mineralogical Bank.
And she alone knew of gain or loss. He was only a gilded dummy.
But one great house guarded all these covert transactions, and the
deliveries to them, in case of sales, were always made by an order
on the cashier of the Mineralogical.
A dozen times the wily schemer had verified that Mrs. Willoughby
knew all the details of each purchase or delivery long before his own
daily report.
For when her account was actively moving, once a day the mistress
and her secret agent always met.
But never had Elaine Willoughby’s foot mounted the broad steps of
the Elmleaf, neither had the luxury-loving man ever dared to yield to
Justine’s mad desire to visit him in his splendid new home.
“It would be simply a financial suicide—our joint ruin!” he had
whispered.
“But wait—wait till I marry her!”
And then, their chiming laughter ended the daring woman’s
pleadings. For the time was to come when the fortune of the
generous dupe would be ruled by the victorious young Napoleon.
Harold Vreeland knew, in his heart, that the Queen of the Street was
aware of the wild daily life of the men in the Elmleaf.
For after rout-ball, opera, and theatre there were often stolen visits,
aided by the friendly mantle of darkness, and diamonds which had
gleamed but an hour before on calm and unsullied brows at the
opera glittered balefully in the crepuscular gloom of shaded rooms,
where at least one of the passionate lovers was far away from home.
The schemer had, from the first, avoided all intimacies with these
light-headed men.
He knew that each of his fellow locataires was a Don Juan, and that
tragedy and comedy, sweet sin with shame, were traveling fast upon
its heels and satiety stalking along; that aching brows upon rose-leaf
couches haunted the decorous interiors of this abode of hidden
pleasures. The Elmleaf was a Golgotha of reputations.
And only a fire or an earthquake could reveal the daringly desperate
liaisons, which, urged on by the delightful zest of danger, would have
made public, by any sudden disaster, a story far more ghastly than
the untold record of that hideous night when the Hotel Royal went up
in fire and flame.
It was in a dull resentment against Elaine, and spurred on by Potter’s
tipsy confidence, that Vreeland, now fearing nothing, drew Mrs. Alida
Hathorn aside as he met her by hazard once more in the reception
room of the Savoy. He was waiting for a momentary telegram from
Justine, when his eyes rested upon the alluring moonlight glances of
that provoking young beauty, Mrs. Fred Hathorn. When she had gaily
rallied him on the Sardanapalian splendor of his Elmleaf
establishment, he whispered in burning words: “Why do you not ever
come and see it?”
The costly fan trembled and snapped in her hand as she slowly said:
“I wanted to ask you something to-day! The time has come!”
“With Mrs. McMorris?” she whispered, vaguely pointing toward his
spider parlor.
“Without Mrs. McMorris,” the ardent pleading voice replied.
“I will tell you all. I will lay my life at your feet!”
Alida Hathorn pouted. “I will never find my way.” Her tone was that of
light raillery, but her cheeks were deadly pale. She was trembling on
the brink of her ruin.
And then, Vreeland, taking her hands in his, whispered to her words
whereat the busy familiar devil at his side laughed in glee.
“If you mean to say yes,” he murmured, “give me that red rose from
your breast.”
And when he raised his head, the rose in his hand was the pledge of
a dark tryst of the devil’s own making.
Before he slept, for his throbbing heart would not down in the
crowning victory of his revenge upon the desperate Hathorn, he tore
open a telegram which marked another milestone of his life.
“Victory!” he cried, for the words told him of Justine’s success.
“They dined to-day alone at the place named, and I have news for you. Coming
home, by Pittsburg.”
The overjoyed scoundrel cried: “Potter was right, after all. Everything
comes round to the man who waits.”
For a study of the great journals told him of a forthcoming report
fixing the policy of the Government upon the tariff.
“If she has the secret, she will surely act upon it,” he cried. “That ties
her to the great Sugar Trust’s secret service. Perhaps he trusts her
on account of the old love.
“Justine shall wrest the proofs from her by either fair means or foul.
And, as for to-morrow night—” His lips were parched and dry as he
thought of the light foot slipping up the stairway of the Elmleaf—“not
with Mrs. McMorris!” He seemed to be wrapped in a golden
whirlwind of success.
“If she comes once when she wishes to, she will come again when I
wish her to!” gloated the schemer, whose mind was now fixed upon
detaching Bagley upon some trumped-up errand and making such a
feast as “Rose in bloom” laid out when the hoodwinked “Shah
Jehan” was “away” at his palace of Ispahan.
“I now hold the cards, and I shall be the victor at last in this game of
life,” he swore, as he dreamed of those pleading moonlight eyes.
Harold Vreeland waited for two days in a fever of excitement for
some mandate from his artful patroness. “She is a sly one at heart,
after all, is Mme. Elaine,” he growled. “Her stay ‘at Pittsburg’ is only
to throw me off my guard, and perhaps Hathorn.
“She may have taken any one of a dozen short roads to steal back
from her rendezvous with her senatorial confidant. Friend or lover—
which?”
He groaned in helpless rage. His mean spirit, his hidden vicious
agnosticism, made him doubt every woman.
To him they were all the same! The biting words of that crooked,
malignant genius, Pope, came back: “Every woman is at heart a
rake.”
“By Jove! I have found them all to be living behind imitation fronts,”
he snarled.
He was seated in his office watching the pale-faced and silent Mary
Kelly, when a street messenger arrived with a card sealed in an
ordinary telegraph envelope.
It bore only these words, scrawled by the artful Frenchwoman:
“Come over to the room.”
Stealing a watchful glance at the silent girl in the office, Vreeland
hastened away. He had never been able to approach the slightest
intimacy with the gray-eyed Irish-American girl.
“Her convent shyness backs up her convent modesty,” sneered
Vreeland, who dared not covertly insult his patroness’ protégé.
Plaintively handsome, her steadfast eyes gleaming with a patient
resignation, the pale cheeks and slender form told of a life of semi-
invalidism. When not employed on her fashionable master’s
business, she was ever busied copying literary manuscripts or legal
documents.
“She’s another cool hand,” vulgarly imagined the upstart schemer.
“She knows that she is safe as long as Mrs. Willoughby is at the
other end of that private wire.
“But, perhaps this Daly, the Roundsman, may some day bring a glow
to those cheeks. They are all alike—mistress and maid—here in hot-
hearted, wicked New York.
“This one’s only a neat, sly little sneak, and a spy on me.”
Vreeland’s every nerve was tingling as he dashed up the stairs to
Justine’s nest on South Fifth Avenue.
Standing ready for instant departure, the excited girl told him of how
she had stolen away while her fatigued mistress slept.
“You will hear from her at once—probably to come up to-night. Now,
once for all, there is no love between them. I found my way as usual.
Only business—great business—money affairs—the play of the
stocks. He is to come up in a month and bring a new Senator from
the West.
“One of the secret friends; so, mon ami, you may soon have another
rival.”
Vreeland gnashed his teeth as the girl said: “They dined together—
alone—and talked for hours. Senator Alynton gave her a paper after
they had talked about the Government, about lawsuits and troubles,
and that I sewed up in her corset for her in her presence before we
left. Brother and sister they are, in friendship, but he never even
raised her hand to his lips. Elle est bien bête, trop bête, pour
l’amour!” was Justine’s parting fling.
“You and I must get that paper, or a copy of it. It’s our fortune!” he
cried. But, Justine had fled, only adding: “She saw no other man.
She only went there to meet Alynton. Now, back to your rooms. She
will soon call for you.”
Justine was a true prophetess, for while Vreeland sat in his rooms
immersed in the study of a dozen newspaper articles upon an
ominous flurry in the “Sugar” securities, the lame girl tapped at his
door. With a bow, she handed him the transcribed telephone
message: “Please come up at once. Very important.”
“Compliments, and say that I’ll leave instantly,” gravely replied
Vreeland, without lifting his head.
As he hurried on toward the Circassia, he endeavored to frame
some idea of the daring woman speculator’s plans.
There were rumors of unfavorable tariff action, of hostile legislation,
of adverse decisions of the courts to be expected, of a growing
agitation against the “Sugar Trust,” and even of the desire of the
great Standard Oil Company to force the value of “Sugar shares”
down by the pressure of their heavily-armed capitalistic secret
brokers, and to “gobble” a controlling interest, or at least the bulk of
the heavy holdings.
“This surely means a slaughter of the little fishes,” mused Vreeland.
Rumors of a reincorporation of the seventy-five million dollar
capitalized company in New Jersey, the threatened move to divide
its capital stock into common and preferred, were rife on the Street.
“Ah!” growled Vreeland, as he glanced over a tabulated statement of
the ratings since its organization. “This may either send the stock,
now at seventy, down to forty or fifty, or up to a hundred and twenty-
five. If I only knew?”
He laughed mockingly as he dismissed the subject. “It will only be
double or quits.”
“Double their wealth for the insiders—and quits for the poor devils
squeezed to the wall!” While he waited in the drawing-room for his
patroness, the woman whom he began to fear he never would make
his dupe or slave, he pondered over her real purposes in the vast
hidden speculations.
“Has she not already money enough?” he enviously thought, gazing
on the heaped-up splendors of costly taste around him. And then, he
remembered that he had never met any man, woman, or child in
New York City who had money enough.
“It’s the fashionable craze—money-getting, by hook or crook,” he
reflected.
“And once mixed up in the game, it’s hard for her to leave it,
especially if she is the go-between who links some of the nation’s
statesmen to the great insiders of the Trust.
“This home may be only a sham, Lakemere only a way station for
the friendly conspirators, and that paper may be a dangerous
document which neither side would dare to hold. And old Endicott,
too—what’s his rôle?”
He was the more interested as Justine had swept away all
suspicions of an amourette between the two whom he feared.
“Still there is the lost child. If I only knew how old the girl was,” he
fretted.
“It may be the child of the last decade, or the fruit of a girlish
marriage. That secret, and the paper, I must have.
“But, Justine must steal the one, and I have got to reach her line of
secret communications.”
As he met his calmly-smiling secret employer he could not divine the
revengeful purposes hidden under her gently-heaving bosom.
CHAPTER VIII.
MISS ROMAINE GARLAND, STENOGRAPHER.
It was late that night when the excited Vreeland left the Circassia
and he was still somewhat in the dark as to the real object of his
veiled employment. He reasoned justly that there was not a grain of
sentiment now in the frankly defined relations between himself and
the Lady of Lakemere.
The money bond between them was only that cold one of employer
and employed, and the unmistakable dignity of Elaine’s business
manner held him decidedly aloof. Here was no lover’s thrall.
Not a single reference to her absence had escaped her lips. There
was no pleasant, social white-lying going on between them, and he
was still in the dark when he left, with the strictest orders to await
every moment between ten and three, her signal for the beginning of
stock operations of gigantic magnitude.
“This Sugar stock may pay twelve and seven per cent on common
and preferred in a year, or else be driven down to half price. We
must be wary,” she sighed. “No one can truly forecast the actions of
our courts, journals, electors or government,” she mused. “The very
principle of reckless instability is the one sure thing of all our
American doings.”
“And yet, you move along with the others, Madonna,” smilingly said
Vreeland.
“You shall see,” she laughed. “The stock market, the sea, and a
woman’s heart are never at rest. Always distrust the seeming calm.

Educating For Critical Democratic Literacy Integrating Social Studies and Literacy in The Elementary Classroom 1st Edition Kathryn M. Obenchain

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Educating For Critical Democratic Literacy Integrating Social Studies and Literacy in The Elementary Classroom 1st Edition Kathryn M. Obenchain

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Educating for Critical Democratic

Literacy Integrating Social Studies and

Educating for Language and Literacy Diversity Mobile

Queering Critical Literacy and Numeracy for Social

Teenagers’ Everyday Literacy Practices in English:

Librarians in Schools as Literacy Educators: Advocates

Disability Studies and the Inclusive Classroom Critical

Teaching Literacy in the Twenty-First Century

180 Days of Social Studies Grade K Daily Social Studies

The Information Literacy Framework Case Studies of

Kathryn M. Obenchain is an associate professor in the Department of

Julie L. Pennington is an associate professor of Literacy Studies at the University

Kathryn M. Obenchain and Julie L. Pennington

ISBN: 978-1-138-81374-8 (hbk)

I dedicate this book to the memory of my parents who taught me to love

1 Educating for Critical Democratic Literacy 3

2 Critical Democratic Literacy: Fostering Informed

3 What Can I Do to Be a Good Citizen? A Kindergarten

4 When and How Should I Get Involved in Civic Life?

5 How Should I Talk About Important Civic Issues?

6 What Can I Do When a Law Is Unjust? A Fifth-Grade

7 Critical Democratic Literacy: Key Concepts and Pedagogy 129

8 Critical Democratic Literacy: Resources for Application

Table 4.1 Process guide for planning a unit on

Educating young citizens by bringing Critical Democratic Literacy (CDL) to

Purpose and Organization of the Book

Part I: Understanding Critical Democratic Literacy

Part II: Teaching Critical Democratic Literacy

Part III: Implementing Critical Democratic Literacy

Civic Education and Social Studies

Only the justice-oriented citizen takes on a critical perspective because civic

Barriers to Educating Our Developing Citizens

The Accountability Era: Civic Education and Literacy in

. . . in 2002 as NCLB, the federal government instituted programs of

The focus on high-stakes testing pressured teachers to teach to the test

As the literacy curriculum narrowed, schools had little to no time available

The Current Standards Movements

“PLUNGER” VREELAND’S GAY LIFE, “UNDER THE ROSE.”

MISS ROMAINE GARLAND, STENOGRAPHER.

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